1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to Information Technology (IT) services, and more particularly, relates to Internet Telephony including Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) conferencing services and two party call services and the management of same.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Various types of VoIP services are known, including conferencing services and point-to-point two-party call services, wherein the Internet may be used for transmission of telephone calls. Each known VoIP service provider has its own management system to monitor and manage voice quality. Also, known service providers have their own service domain, so that all resources for a specific VoIP service belong to a single service provider. As a result, users of VoIP services are forced to work with a single VoIP service provider when using a specific VoIP service. Services or resources provided by service providers may include segments of a managed quality of service (QoS) VoIP network, a VoIP access network, and conference mixers (e.g., audio conference mixers).
It is also known that Internet architecture has provided users a rich set of choices among the various VoIP service providers. Indeed, Internet access and availability has become so pervasive that the majority of VoIP service providers are able to reach most machines that have access to the Internet. However, due to the lack of a standard based VoIP service mechanism and management system that can govern various service providers, VoIP services are still governed by individual service providers so that prices and quality of service remain dependent on each individual service provider.
The dependency on individual service providers can result in poor quality VoIP conference services. For example, an individual VoIP conference service provider may not be able to provide a sufficient number of conference servers for complete geographical coverage of a conference call. As a result, a large part of the conference voice data path may go across the Internet uncontrolled, resulting in loss of voice quality. Consequently, conference users suffer higher cost and lower quality of service.
Similarly, it is difficult to control quality with peer-to-peer (two-party) VoIP services when the routing path cannot be controlled. For example, as shown in FIG. 1, in a conventional method of voice quality measurement, a User A sends a set of voice packet probes to User B across a free routing path of the Internet 10. By comparing the sent and received probe packets, voice quality can be measured based on some pre-defined matrices such as packet delay, loss and jitter. The IP protocol can successfully deliver the packets from the source to the destination if we know the IP address of the destination. However, an IP source routing protocol is not able to specify a routing path from the source to the destination due to a lack of knowledge of the IP addresses along a routing path. As a result, a routing path and its effects on the quality of service cannot be controlled.
Therefore, there exists a need for a standard management mechanism and protocol for VoIP services that can go across one or more service providers, so that resources of multiple service providers may be virtualized. As a result, VoIP service providers will be able to fully utilize their unused resources, and users can receive low cost and high quality service.